


Cry Uncle

by BeneficialAddiction



Series: Boxers, Briefs, and Other Shorts [7]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Fanboy Phil Coulson, Manipulative Nick Fury, Phil Coulson & Nick Fury Friendship, Phil is a damsel in distress, Uncle Nick Fury, Young Clint, foster dad Nick Fury, foster kid Clint, merc Clint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 16:05:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10745085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeneficialAddiction/pseuds/BeneficialAddiction
Summary: Phil gets ransomed, Clint collects.





	Cry Uncle

Phil Coulson goes missing and it's Nick Fury's fault. He doesn't feel bad about it – it's a means to an end and they both know that sometimes sacrifices have to be made. Phil won't begrudge him forty-eight hours holding time, and it's not like he wasn't careful. He'd designed the op himself, set his best friend up to be taken under an impeccably planned set of circumstances. He can't afford to risk his one good eye after all, so it's a specifically selected sect of AIM that are given the opportunity to abduct him, a sect that are certain to try to sell him back to SHIELD instead of torture him for information or simply put a bullet in his head. 

He'll be fine. 

He's been trained for this and Fury's covered every angle three times over, and really in the end, this isn't about Phil at all. 

It's about the damned kid. 

Commander Nicholas R. Fury was honorably discharged from the United States Army after losing his eye to the cause at the age of thirty three. He had never done well being at loose ends, and SHIELD had yet to be borne. At the time he had desperately needed something, anything to occupy his time, when his friend and fellow military-man Samuel Wilson had suggested he become a foster father. 

Turned out the shrink had actually had a kid in mind, and less than a week later a skinny, scarred, sarcastic twelve year old had been dropped on his doorstep. Clinton Francis Barton was three-quarters deaf and flinched every time Fury made a move in his direction, hoarded food and refused to speak and hid under the bed for hours. For three months it seemed like they were at a complete impasse, Fury doing his best to be a safe harbor for the kid, never pushing him, just being there as a silent pillar of support, the only thing he knew how to do and Clint never responding, until one night a vicious thunderstorm had crashed overhead and Fury found his bed rather more occupied than it normally was. 

Things got better after that. He found the kid a tutor and a pair of high-end hearing aids, caught him up in arithmetic and bought him a cheap bow. Clint shared his history in the quiet moments he found where it felt safe for him to talk, and Fury learned about his alcoholic father, who had beaten and deafened him and killed his mother and himself. He learned about the orphanages and the abuse, his brother Barney who had tried but who had only been two years older than young Clint. He learned about the circus and the Swordsman, Clint's mentor Trickshot, and he learned about Hawkeye. 

The kid was an amazing shot, he had to give him that. Raw, untrained, undisciplined, but incredibly gifted. He never missed. Kid was going places, actually managed to impress him, and when Sam came to them five months after that to say that he'd found Clint a permanent home it nearly broke Nick Fury's toughened, world-weary heart. 

In the end he lets the kid go. 

He'd been a good foster father, stern enough to battle the brat into shape but guffly loving enough to give him just the right kind of honest, appropriately familial attention he needed. 

Deep down he knew he couldn't be more than that. 

As much as he had loved the kid SHIELD was slowly forming, and there was no way Nick could bring him into that world. He checked up on the family – a middle aged couple with no children of their own and no criminal background – and he made sure that Clint felt comfortable with them before he let the kid go. It was for the best, he knew, and he suspected the kid did as well, but it still broke something in both of them they day he left. Nick gave him a second bow, a better one this time, and the number to a private burned phone that no one else was ever given. 

They stayed in touch over the years, phone calls and emails and old-fashioned paper letters, written in the cyphers that the kid had taken to so quickly, and Fury actually attends the kid's graduation. He hugs Nick like he never wants to let go, and then begs to be brought in to SHIELD, and breaks his grizzled heart all over again. Instead he gets him into the Marines, fast-tracks him to sniper, and couldn't be more damn proud of how the kid does. 

Every time he asks to be made an agent, Nick says no. 

As funny as it sounds, he's safer in the Marines, safer killing human men at a distance than coming into the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division. 

The kid keeps asking, and Nick keeps saying no. 

Then the shit hits the fan, the Marines disavow an entire Strike Team, and Clint is left behind, dishonorably discharged, missing or dead. 

Nick searches, knows the kid's alive and knows he's pissed, because people start ending up dead. Very suddenly there's a new merc on scene, punching bad guys full of arrows and flying below the radar, but who else could it be but Hawkeye, the World's Greatest Marksman? 

He's tried to bring him in. 

Tried to make contact. 

But the kid is angry, and Nick really can't blame him. 

So, Phil. 

Clint knows how important Coulson is to him. He's never met the man but he's heard all about him, knows that he's the one man in the world Nick trusts whole-heartedly. So he puts out a quiet notice on darknet – all a part of the plan – 100k to anyone returning Phil Coulson safely to the loving arms of SHIELD. The money will be half the lure, Phil's reputation the other, and he hopes the kid's natural curiosity will be enough to draw him out. 

From there, well... 

Let's just say Nick isn't stupid, and he knows more about the kid's sex life than he ever wanted to. 

Coulson is exactly his type, and unfortunately enough for everyone else, the kid is exactly his. 

It's a bridge he'll have to cross when he comes to it – for now all he can do is wait, and hope that the bait he's set is pretty enough to tempt the hawk back down to rest.

**AVAVA**

Phil Coulson has never been so disgusted with himself in his life.

He'd known something was off, he'd _known it,_ and yet he'd still gone on this stupid op, trundled off like the good little soldier he was and falling right into whatever stupid plot Fury had up his sleeve this time. Stripped to his boxers, bound, gagged, and ransomed off like some rich widower's prized poodle... really it's just horrifying. 

It only got worse from there. 

From there strong, blonde, and sexy had burst on to the scene, taken out the bad guys with a bow and arrow and all the ease and confidence of a professional. Warehouse cleared, he'd taken one long, piercing look at Phil, smirked, and stuffed him into the boot of a car. 

He'll say it again; _horrifying._

Of course, it doesn't help that he's currently slung over the archer's shoulder like a sack of potatoes, being carted through SHIELD headquarters in his underwear like some kind of trophy buck. His only condolence is that he has enough sense not to fight it, not to kick and squeal and struggle futilely. At least he has that much dignity left. 

It's not much. Half the damned organization is witness to his embarrassment by the time the man marches onto the control deck, and how the hell had he gotten through security clearance in the first place? Phil is still trying to puzzle it out when he's dumped unceremoniously onto his ass, Nick Fury and Maria Hill and forty other agents all staring at him like he's grown a third leg. 

"What the fuck?!" he snarls around the filthy towel tied between his teeth, but his bastard of a one-eyed best friend doesn't even spare him a glance. 

He's looking at the man who's drug him in like he's seen a ghost, like what little heart he has is breaking. 

For his part the man is glaring right back, his arms crossed and hardcore attitude in the cant of his hips, the set of his shoulders. It doesn’t make sense, his body language all off, because his head is ducked too, his eyes darting back and forth, his weight forward on the balls of his feet, and Phil's never seen someone so blatantly fighting themselves. 

"Come on kid," Fury says suddenly, his voice low and gruff and pained. "You're not _still_ mad at me?" 

And it's like the man shatters before his eyes. 

_"Uncle Nick!"_ he whimpers, and then he's darting forward and crashing into Fury's arms, burying his face in the man's chest and sobbing. 

Phil is stunned stupid, they all are, and there isn't a damned sound on the control deck except for the man's breathy cries, Fury's arms tight around him as he does his best to shake apart. It goes on for what seems like an eternity, no one daring to move or even breathe, until the man pulls himself together and straightens up, sniffling and hiccoughing and scrubbing at his cheeks. 

"Alright?" Fury asks, and the man nods, wrapping his arms low around his own ribs. 

The Director of SHIELD scowls and then does something that not even Phil has ever seen him do – shucks his ever-present leather jacket with a flourish, snaps it out, and wraps it tight around the man's shoulders. 

"Let's go kid," he grumbles, grabbing him by the nape of the neck and dragging him into his chest a second time, scrubbing his hand through his hair. "I owe you a drink." 

"You owe me a hundred thou." 

"That too." 

The kid spends the next six days wandering the halls of SHIELD like a ghost; pale-faced and silent and curious, swamped in a leather jacket that's two sizes too big for him, and nobody says a damned word. On the seventh day he turns up on the range in a sleeveless shirt that makes Phil's mouth water with Nick Fury himself behind him. 

Really it's just not fair. 

On the bright side, everyone's too busy whispering about Hawkeye and Uncle Nick to spare even a moment's gossip on Phil's Captain America boxers.


End file.
